Vikings in New Zealand

Factual Questions
141

They have blue eyes. How exactly is that different from having blue eyes?

That’s sixteen generations. They have a record of all 65,000 ancestors they would have had back at that time? And of course, 400 years ago is still a century after the conquest.

She doesn’t look anything like a Viking to me. She has high cheekbones and a broad nose.

Nobody keeps “good verbal records.” And because a place is hard to get to today doesn’t mean no Europeans have gotten there for the past 500 years. After all, you got there.

You’ve still provided exactly zero evidence that blue eyes and blond hair predate the Spanish.

Uh-huh. Your cite is a post on the Yahoo Contributors Network. Here are the academic credentials of your authority:

Pretty impressive.

First, it’s a common misconception that Amerindians have only black hair. Many have brown hair, as for example this Embera Indian girl.

Second, many mummies from around the world have reddish hair, regardless of what color they had when they started out. Hair pigments contain eumelanins, which give black/brown/yellow tints, and phaeomelanins, which give reddish tints. Eumelanins are less stable than phaeomelanins and degrade faster. The blackish colors fade, leaving the phaeomelanins which make the hair appear reddish. See for example the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II.

[QUOTE=LarryM]
Look at the bone structure of the skulls. Do they it look asian like incas or european?
[/QUOTE]

The one you linked to looks clearly like an American Indian to me, due to the high cheekbones. It does not look European. As the Wiki article I linked to above says, Chachapoya remains show Amerindian characteristics like shovel-shaped incisors.

May I ask where you obtained your anthropological training?

142

Wait a minute. Vikings had airplanes? If not, how and why did they go there?

143

They went there for the gold the Spanish weren’t interested in, on feet that the Spanish didn’t have, silly.

144

My family immigrated from northern Europe and so I know that the Vikings also colonized Antarctica in the year 800 A.D. They interbred with the indigenous penguin population to create the noble, majestic Emperor Penguin (it’s obvious, just LOOK at them.)

145

wins the thread.

146

Why thank you, I’ve never won a thread before! :cool:

I was also wondering why “Vikings” are supposed to be a bunch of Dolph Lundgren lookalikes in theories like this. Shouldn’t some of them look like Karl Rove or Bjork or Janet Reno?

147

(Some) Englishmen can claim a Viking heritage, so there.

148

What is this “Viking roundhouse design” you are talking about? A typical Viking house was big and rectangular and made of wood. I can’t recall ever hearing about a round stone house built by Vikings.

149

Can you quote where in that article they refer to “Vikings”?

150

Why isn’t anyone considering that blond haired blue eyed Maoris crossed the Pacific to South America, traveled inland to settle for a while, then crossed the rest of the continent and set sail across the Atlantic to eventually land and settle in Scandanavia becoming the Vikings? Seems obvious to me.

151

That was a prominent theory until recently. Thor Heyerdahl’s unknown twin brother Mhor built a raft from moss and sailed from South America to Iceland to prove it, but recent DNA analysis show no Maori DNA in any part of the Norwegian population.

Well, except the face tattooed weirdos in Maoridal, but they could easily have immigrated here after Europeans (re)discovered New Zealand.

152

To hell with pseudo-science like DNA (does anyone even know what that stands for anyway?). I say there is a ton of evidence. I’m sure you’ll find a cave in Norway that has the remains of a Maori longboat. There is scant evidence that Vikings had any horn helmets, even though everyone knows they wore them, but the horn helmet found in New Zealand is definite proof. And there’s no doubt that the Viking settlements in Minnesota, Kansas, and Utah are proof that they were on their way home back to New Zealand.

153

I suspect LarryM is thinking of Celtic stone roundhouses, which are fairly widespread. As you say the Vikings typically built rectangular houses, mainly out of wood. The fact that Chachapoya structures were round and built out of stone would in fact argue against them being influenced by Vikings (if that weren’t already so ridiculous on other grounds). Perhaps the Chachapoyas are actually descended from a wandering band of Irish monks.

Of course, the idea that the Chachapoyas were pale-skinned is based on the accounts of Spanish explorers who had contacted them by the mid 1500s, so it’s unequivocal that the Spanish have been capable of reaching the area for the past 400+ years.

154

Around here it stands for Det Norske Arbeiderparti - The Norwegian Labor party. They ensure us we’re not descended from Maori.

155

Never made it past Australia , I’ve seen the carvings with my own eyes ,must be true.

156

Plus, I’m watching “The Vikings” on the THC, and I learned from that show that they didn’t know England existed. That proves they didn’t know New Zealand existed!

157

How about old Zeeland?

158

Kind of been following this. I studied this in school some years ago and had acess to Pedro Pizarro’s original manuscript called “Relation of the discovery and the conquest of the kingdoms of Peru” in spanish. It is in the Huntington library in Southern California.
The passage that everyone misquotes is this.

They considered themselves
beautiful, and almost all the daughters of
these Lords and orejones were so. The Indian
women of the Guancas and Chachapoyas and
Caflares were the common women, most of
them being beautiful. The rest of the woman-
hood of this kingdom were thick, neither
beautiful nor ugly, but of medium good-looks.
The people of this kingdom of Peru (Chachapoyas)were white,
swarthy in colour, and among them the Lords
and Ladies were whiter than Spaniards. I saw
in this land an Indian woman and a child who
would not stand out among white blonds.
These people [of the upper class] say that they
were the children of the idols. (Gods)

Most of the quotes on the internet are incorrect.

159

Now you’re talkin’!

160

<Looks at cocoanut.> <Looks at migrating swallow.> <Ponders.>